One Foot Out the Door

When we think about an employee who’s planning to quit, we may imagine someone who’s totally disengaged or is a surly troublemaker.

Truthfully, most people don’t overtly advertise their dissatisfaction. We live in an age of job hopping and job shopping; quite frankly, people have gotten savvier about hiding their intentions until they are ready to turn in notice. So what’s a manager or business owner to do?

5 Signs That Trouble is Brewing

He’s suddenly very agreeable.

Maybe he was vocal and always had ideas in meetings. Maybe he liked to spark a lively debate to determine what was the most cost-effective way of doing something. Now he’s laidback and has a “whichever way the wind blows” attitude. “Oh, I think your ideas are good. We’ll do it your way.” This change to a lack of passion or investment in the company could mean he’s planning his exit strategy and won’t be around to see the outcome of whatever is discussed in these meetings. Why make any waves or unnecessary drama for yourself when you have a foot out the door?

His social media presence is much greater.

He’s made quite a few updates to his LinkedIn profile and asked for endorsements. His Facebook page is set to private now or he may have clamped down on what his current colleagues can see. Of course a more active social media habit doesn’t always mean someone is about to jump ship, but it is something that job hunters rely on. If he used to check LI once a month and he’s now camped out on LI for 5 hours a day, you have to wonder if he’s hoping to be noticed by recruiters or HR professionals at other firms. Or he’s using LI as a platform to speak with them already.

He’s practicing CYA.

We’ve all heard about stories of longer lunches, fake dental appointments, weird reasons for needing to leave the office, etc. (No kidding- I was once in an office where a worker said she needed to leave to buy laundry detergent in the middle of the day and then vanished for the rest of the shift.) Savvy workers won’t risk being found out by doing such obvious things. In fact, they may overcompensate in the opposite direction by being as punctual as possible and over-explaining every detail. “At lunch I went to that new café down the street. I ordered a diet coke and turkey sandwich. After that, I stopped at CVS to buy multivitamins.” Meanwhile, no one asked.

Changing social interactions.

Maybe she always seemed too busy for the office happy hour and now here she is, kicking loose and having a lot of fun. Maybe he was always at every social event and now he’s withdrawn and needing to rush off at 5pm on the dot. Someone who has been buttoned down and conservative but is now a party animal may be thinking, “I’ll be leaving this place in the next two weeks, so who cares? Why shouldn’t I have a little fun?” Or if the person has been the office social planner and now he’s never around for events, he may be attending interviews in his downtime.

History is repeating itself.

When you interviewed her, why did she say she wanted to leave her current employer? Lack of upward mobility? No new challenges? Tension with the management team? If her reasons for leaving them have now repeated themselves at your company, she may decide it’s time to look for a different opportunity somewhere else. Companies can sometimes be slow to promote A+ employees and slow to recognize when someone has more potential than what they are utilizing. If the manager doesn’t notice and take appropriate steps, someone else at another company probably will. Especially in such a competitive economy.

Are you a hiring manager in food or agriculture? If you think a star employee has one foot out the door and you’d like some help, please email me directly at sara@sectechnical.com and I will personally respond with recommendations.